The Last War
by Norwest
Summary: The last battle might have been fought, but for one person the war wasn't over.


Booted feet slip against the underbrush, the autumn leaves crackling with age and decay. Sunlight shines down on the withered traveler as she walks the old path through the woods. Vines tear and fallen branches snap under the strider's tread, as the brush grudgingly lets the interloper pass. She stops long enough to slice apart the offending plants with her F-S before trudging on.

_"What gives you the right, damnit? Bloody hell, who made you God?"_

Her knees aren't what they used to me, she muses with a wry grimace. Her poor knees hadn't been up to the strain back in her sixties, never mind now. The old morning run was more of a fast-paced shuffle these days, and calisthenics were a terrible exercise in futility. Glasses were now a requirement instead of a useful cover, and the sounds of life around her, even that ridiculous rock-and-roll, had become quieter over the years.

_"...good luck with the Bitch today. I hear she's getting worse as she goes senile."_

The old oak trees whisper in the wind like gossiping wives, and she remembers a time when they actually had. She thought she'd grown beyond such childish superstitions, but in the twilight of her life she found herself wishing for them again. The memories of _back then_ were full of darkness and war, but they were never so dark that one couldn't see the light. Safe and untouchable inside her head, the memories had kept her spirits up when it had truly been too awful to see any good left.

_"The Indefatigable just sent up her SOS beacon, ma'am. She's gone."_

She drops the Webley somewhere along the path with no regrets. It was a wonderful piece of machinery; had worked without fail across four continents; had saved her life more times than she could count; and had bore witness to many things best left forgotten. She let the speed-loaders fall with a gentle tinkling of brass as the shells glinted in the autumn sunlight.

_"Someone needs to stay behind. Might as well be me."_

Passports fall by the wayside, a plethora of colors reflecting the warm Welsh afternoon glow._ Mrs. McKenna_, proclaims an official document of the Spanish government._ Ms. Maguire_ unequivocally states a South African passport. A keycard for MI5's electronic readers says simply, _M_. The many names and faces drift by her as she walks, the long-ago voices whispering to her in the crisp fall air.

_"Lady-" a nod, "and gentlemen, our target is Rafael Salvatore. This is a black operation, so make sure you lads pack those Russian IDs-"_

The medals go next, and not without a sigh; she'd always had a soft spot for the cloth and ribbons. A Distinguished Service Cross, gained for _"actions taken in direct combat with the enemy."_ That curious little Queen's Gallantry Medal, which they'd thrown at her in lieu of other shiny metal objects. Meritorious service badges, decorations for gallantry and bravery and other rubbish, and a single Victoria Cross litter the trail behind her. She lets the crimson ribbon of the cross slip through her fingers slowly as the medal slides towards the earth, and her mind takes her on an unbidden journey back to the frozen ship which had brought her such a thing.

_"Ugly old tub, isn't she? Clear the deck, crew expendable."_

She unloads the rifle before she drops it, and the long brass shell casings bounce under her feet as she travels on. She's seized by a momentary urge, and the old Mosin-Nagant is in position before she can blink. The scope hunting targets in innocent woods, her mind locked in battles long past, she freezes for several seconds before her wandering thoughts return. She lowers the butt of the rifle to the ground, letting it thump heavily into the underbrush as she reaches for her last burden.

_"Using the enemy's weapons, eh? Good initiative; should be plenty of ammunition for-"_

Withered fingers grasp the short bow, stringing the weapon as though she was fourteen again with a wonderful new gift to use. The aged wood had kept its sheen through the decades, and despite the countless years and faces, it was her oldest companion. She held it in a relaxed grip, nocking an arrow and pulling the string with never-forgotten muscle memory.

_"Good Lord, woman, where did you learn to shoot? It's like you've been at this your whole life!"_

She lets the bowstring relax with a sigh. Killing was far too easy for her, even if the target was simply a mute animal. In_ back then_ she'd taken easily to hunting in the woods, and when she'd grown she had learned that hunting men was much like hunting rabbits. Track them, trick them, trap them, kill them - poisons and bombs worked when knives and guns failed.

"Do you know why you were given a bow?"

The warm breath whooshes gently over her left shoulder, ruffling her hair for a moment. The knife, by now more an extension of her hand than a weapon, is swinging at empty air before she can think. Warm brown eyes meet her gaze, and the Fairbairn-Sykes buries itself in the ground as her fingers go slack with astonishment.

"Do you know why you were given a bow?"

She meets the lion's gaze squarely, unafraid after all these years to answer his parting question which had dogged her for her entire life. "Because I can use it," she answers. "Because I can hold that power while not forgetting what it does."

Aslan met her determined gaze, something that might be amusement dancing across his features. "And what does that power do, dear Queen?"

Susan Pevensey swallowed, trying to regain her breath. "It corrupts. It kills slowly, by degrees. It's a terrible thing indeed, to know these secrets and hear these truths."

The warm brown eyes meet her own, calming her and silencing the voices for a moment. "So why do you carry it?"

She wonders: indeed, why her? It was a grim and bloody business, and knowing a country's every dirty secret was a terrible cross to bear. The departing head of MI5 had left his hidden stash of scotch and bourbon for her; after signing off on a kill order for a village infected by an engineered plague, Susan had recognized the ancient spy's gesture of mercy. Yet his parting words had sunk in too, and Susan stands as high as her crooked spine allows: "If not me, then who? If not now, then when?"

The great head dips in acceptance, and Susan says the one question she'd always yearned to ask: "Why?"

They both know what she means. The lion's eyes meet hers, and for a moment Susan is back in her room, twenty years old and mind full of empty thoughts. She's straightening her hair before the debutante ball, the detritus of high fashion swirling around her as she beautifies herself while her family dies at that damned train station - and the ghostly memory turns to sunlight as the Lion breathes on her.

"Because their time had come," he answers. "You were not ready then."

"Am I now?" she wants to ask. She casts a mind's eye over the dark accomplishments of her life, the crimes she'd seen and the crimes she'd done flowing together like brooks into a river. She had become Death, destroyer of worlds, and at the end of a long life she couldn't feel anything but weariness and regret.

"What have you done with the time given you, Susan Pevensey?"

She wants to denounce herself as an evildoer, as a black widow luring innocents to their doom in her web of intrigue and shadows. She opens her mouth to confess her sins, but no words come out. As she meets the lion's eyes, she finds herself remembering her life in a new light.

The sentry she'd knifed in Vladivostok would have seen the escaped prisoners; his death had given her the opening to get the five families to safety. Murdering the German banker had opened his private accounts, allowing the Service to topple an entire criminal empire. The men of the _Grozny_ - well, they'd known the consequences of the things they carried.

"Peter would have done better than I," she insists, but the lion looks on and she remembers Peter's unflinching nobility and sense of right, which would have doomed many an operation. She thinks of the others, and thinks of how Edmund would have silently destroyed himself as he committed those terrible, necessary acts. Lucy...she can't even imagine sweet little Lucy in such a dreadful profession as hers.

"You have walked a difficult road, Susan, yet you have weathered it with the gentleness and grace of a true Queen. You were given the power to kill, yet you stayed your hand when possible. You have served your people and crown to the fullest of your abilities; what more could anyone ask?"

"I-" her voice cracks, she can't tell whether from age or emotion, and in that instant the sixty-year-old dam breaks and she's sobbing into the lion's mane. Aslan's head is warm and comforting, and she lets out the tears that she'd never shed through the train crash and the funerals and the years beyond.

The Lion's head remained steady despite the wizened old woman hanging onto it, as Aslan looked over the things Susan had left behind. "Your kingdom on Earth is gone, O Queen," the lion rumbled. "Where will you go now?"

Susan sniffled and slowly stumbled to her feet. "I-I don't know," she stammered. "I didn't believe..."

"A most grievous mistake indeed," Aslan replied somberly.

She considered the question seriously. After all the triumph and tragedy, joy and sorrow, what did she want from the vision in front of her? "I want to live in a world where no one fears my name. I want a life where I never have to lie or kill again." Susan swallowed past the lump in her throat, as she asked the question closest to her heart. "I want to go home. I want to go to Narnia."

The Lion placed a heavy paw on her shoulder, and Susan felt lighter than she had in decades. The reds and oranges of the autumn forest suddenly shone brighter, and she heard the sudden rushing of a nearby spring. "My dear," Aslan replied, "you merely had to ask."

Then the lion and the woman were gone, leaving nothing but old burdens and a springtime wind.


End file.
